Eastern Coyote Productions=+=Jennings and Ponder
World Tales and Celtic Musichome

Maintaining Health on Tour

Colds & flu and the touring performer: what a nightmare,
struggling to perform despite-- or worse, having to cancel because of--
laryngitis, gouts of mucus, fever, clogged ears, dizziness, etc.

Here are some of the ways we take care of ourselves, drawn from
the "health on tour" thread on the listserv "storytell."
It's a survey, not a prescription, so don't take anything as gospel.

Common Sense

First, force yourself to listen to your body. If you feel like you're
on the edge, or are pushing to get there, or are in any way vulnerable
(touring, just by the nature of it, makes you vulnerable) make your health
a priority.

The single most important thing is probably to get enough sleep. Go
to bed early, take naps whenever possible. It's fun, and it's good for
you. Make yourself.

Plenty of water, all the time. This is particularly important if you're
flying or winter-driving; the air is very dry, you're tired anyway, airlines
don't necessarily give you enough to drink: bring bottles of water, and
make yourself drink them, and you'll come home in much better shape. Same
is true in the car-- coffee & tea, your basic road drinks, are dehydrating,
they make you pee. If you must drink them (or cola, or alcohol), alternate
with other fluids as well. One way of making sure you're properly hydrated;
every time you pee, drink a big glass of water.

When you work in schools, you are in hotbeds of infection; wash your
hands frequently (almost compulsively) throughout the day. Several
of us say that this practice has cut way back on sick days. Another mentions
that a doctor suggested that he keep his hands away from his face (you'll
be amazed how often you do this, once you start monitoring, he says); most
microbes are passed by the hand to the face; consciously breaking this
habit has helped a great deal.

As much as possible, do good shows, under conditions that make sense.
A good show can heal you, a bad show can make you sick.

Get sensible amounts of regular exercise. Do yoga.

So much for that. Now for the stuff you can buy.

Vitamins

Most of us take vitamins, and swear by them-- vitamin C, in particular--
and up the dosage while on tour. Others advise against the practice, believing
that getting vitamins from food is better.

If you do take vitamin C, the powder is by far the cheapest (so cheap
you may be hard-put to find it available at many drug stores-- food coops
carry it, though.) It's also the easiest to take in large doses: 1000 milligrams
is a half-teaspoon of a nice sour powder that can either be dissolved in
water, or dumped straight on the tongue, like flav-R-straws. (Taken with
800 mgs of Vitamin E, that's also enough to protect your arteries from
the ravages of road-food cholesterol.) Linus Pauling swore that once he
started taking large quantities of vitamin C powder, he never had another
cold or flu.

Some of us require our vitamin C to have bioflavinoids, because we
believe that without these complex compounds, the body cannot absorb or
use vitamin C properly. This means pills, and a higher price, but a more
complete and natural product.

Multi-Vites of various kinds will help keep you from getting too rundown.
If you do get sick, they can help you feel better, since a good deal of
the "sick" feeling is vitamin depletion. One of us takes his
in a time-release capsule.

Garlic

Garlic is king. Garlic is magic. Garlic will make you whole. In the
words of a fine old beatnik movie, "Garlic is better than 1000 mothers."
If you like the taste of garlic at all, start eating a lot of it, raw and
cooked.

If you're feeling poorly, try this: chop up the edible contents of
an entire head of garlic, brown lightly in olive oil, add maybe a gallon of boiling chicken
broth (home made is best, canned or boxed better than nothing.) Add a lot of basil &
oregano & cayenne, add a lot of fresh chopped (or frozen or canned
if that's all you can do) spinach; just before serving add a dash of sesame
oil, ladle out, sprinkle with freshly grated locatelli romano cheese & black pepper. Tastes
wonderful, will restore lost voices and sooth troubled chests.

Get a garlic press and squeeze fresh garlic on your salads.

You can buy garlic already peeled. You'll need to use a lot of it,
or it'll go bad; just get in the habit of cooking with it like a kind of
onion.

"I peel three cloves of fresh garlic, cut them into lozenge shapes,
and swallow them like pills. This saves having to chew them and have a
burning mouth. Within half an hour I feel fine, guaranteed. But my body
is still under attack of course, so I continue to take about three cloves
a day for as long as I feel a bit under the weather. I might reduce that
amount to one a day if I don't really feel it threatening much, and if
I am still right on the verge on getting something virulent, I might take
three cloves twice a day for the first day or so. If they are really tiny,
take more."

GINGER-- this comes in syrups, tonics, candied slices, and tinctures.
Best is fresh juiced, if you have a juicer, which is a whole other topic.
Ginger is good stuff, pound ginger.

ECHINACEA (pronounced Ekka Nayshia) is an herbal tincture, available
at health food stores and food coops, that has been shown to strengthen
the body's immune system. Many of us use it, and say it works very well.
You measure it out with one of those medicine droppers, like an eyedropper--
8 drops, a half-dropper full, etc. It can lose its effectiveness over time,
so you can't take it every day for the rest of your life. One of us has
started alternating it with a Chinese herb, Astragalus.

ZINC lozenges, to dissolve in the back of the mouth. Some of
us used to do this back when it only came as a horrible disgusting-tasting
pill; it's much better now, but it still ain't haut cuisine. It is effective.
It's also good for the male libido, one of your happier side-effects. (As
my pharmacist once said to me, after looking around quickly and ducking
forward conspiratorially, "Zinc for the dink!")

HOMEOPATHY. This is a worthy, inexpensive, often effective, and
never harmful system of medicine; don't think too hard about the rationale
or it'll drive you nuts. Some stores (like our food coop) carry a compounded
homeopathic remedy called "cold and flu" or "C&F."
Read the directions, & take as a cure or as a preventative.

STEAM/HUMIDITY. Another use for water. One of us travels with
a neat inhaler, with a soft mask snug to the nose and chin; it has successfully
combated third-world smog, to make a heavy performance schedule possible.
On the road, you can pick up a big old vaporiser at any discount drugstore
for about $10 and set up in your motel room to counter the effects of dry
heat. Or, inhale steam from a pot of water with a towel around your head.
There's also a spray bottle called NaSal, which can be found in the drugstore
next to the evil inhalants, but it's just a saline solution, and it can
help.

Miscellaneous

"I find that it pays to test for allergies, and if they're present,
treat them with antihistamines."